Animated cartoons have been around nearly as long as motion pictures have been around. However, creating an animated cartoon is a lot more challenging than creating a regular motion picture. Fortunately, digital technology has made the process easier.
Instructions
1. Create a storyline for your animated cartoon. This storyline needs to include a description of your character and what he or she will do in the animated cartoon. To keep things simple these steps will focus only on animating a single character.
2. Draw your animation cels using your art supplies and a light table. Keep in mind that it takes about 32 cells per second to animate a character. So for your 30 second animation, you will need to complete 960 cells. To animate your characters each cel will need to be slightly different. Layer your pages on top of each other on your light table so you can see what the previous cel looked like. This set up will also allow you to flip through your pages to test the movements that you create.
3. Set up your digital video camera to capture each cel on film. To set up a simple filming station use a camera stand to poise your camera over your light table. Secure the light table to your table so it won't move during filming. The light table has pegs that will keep your pages lined up perfectly during filming and it will backlight your cels to make filming easier to do.
4. Use your stop-motion setting or single-frame setting to film each animation cel in order.
5. Upload your images to your computer and use your editing software to add sound and to edit the content. Finally burn your completed cartoon to a DVD and it is ready to share.
